Phase-change lines, scale breaks, and trend lines using Excel 2013

• Published in: Journal of applied behavior analysis Vol. 48; no. 2; pp. 478 - 493
• Main Authors: Deochand, Neil, Costello, Mack S., Fuqua, R. Wayne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2015
• Subjects: Benchmarking; Best Practices; Excel 2013; graph; Graphs; Humans; Methods; Online tutorials; phase change; Quality; raising zero above abscissa; Resistance (Psychology); scale break; single-subject design; Software; Task analysis; User-Computer Interface; Video Technology; single-subject design; phase change; scale break; Excel 2013; raising zero above abscissa; graph
• ISSN: 0021-8855; 1938-3703
• DOI: 10.1002/jaba.198

The development of graphing skills for behavior analysts is an ongoing process. Specialized graphing software is often expensive, is not widely disseminated, and may require specific training. Dixon et al. (2009) provided an updated task analysis for graph making in the widely used platform Excel 2007. Vanselow and Bourret (2012) provided online tutorials that outline some alternate methods also using Office 2007. This article serves as an update to those task analyses and includes some alternative and underutilized methods in Excel 2013. To examine the utility of our recommendations, 12 psychology graduate students were presented with the task analyses, and the experimenters evaluated their performance and noted feedback. The task analyses were rated favorably.